Pepperdine vs. San Diego
- Oct. 19, 2019
- San Diego, California
- San Diego def. Pepperdine 185-113
- Results
Courtesy: University of San Diego Athletics
SAN DIEGO – San Diego swimming and diving opened its season with a 185-113 statement win over Pepperdine in its first dual meet of the year on Saturday afternoon. USD registered 11 first-place finishes in 16 events.
In the first swimming event, USD came out strong with their ‘A’ squad relay finishing with a 1:47.49 in the 200-yard medley relay. The ‘A’ relay consisted of junior Taylor Doherty, junior Kailyn Evans, junior Maeve Murdoch, and freshman Rachel Hubka.
Two underclassmen swam a sub-25 second 50-yard freestyle, freshman Rachel Hubka 24.28 and sophomore Alexa Phillips 24.97, to start off the season in a positive way and give the Toreros 13 out of a possible 19 points in the event.
Hubka finished in first place in all four of her events, including the 100-yard freestyle (53.47) and as part of the relay teams in the 400-yard freestyle and 200-yard IM.
“There were a lot of unknowns going into this meet because of all the freshmen, but it’s great to open the dual meet season this way,” said USD head coach Michael Keeler.
Pepperdine and USD were neck and neck in the 400-freestyle relay, but the Toreros out touched the Waves to secure the win. USD ‘A’ squad consisting of – Hubka, Phillips, Murdoch, Evan – finished at 3:35.44.
In the 100-yard backstroke, Abigail Russell (59.67) finished eight hundredths of a second ahead of second-place Caroline Eckel to give USD a crucial nine points in the event. Three Toreros captured three of the top-four spots in the event.
In addition to the 11 first-place finishes, USD grabbed the top-two spots in five events (100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly, 50-yard free, 100-yard free, 200-yard breaststroke).
In the diving competition, sophomore Isabel Busyn took third place in the 1-meter dive with her scores of 206.40 and 152.55, while fellow sophomore Catherine McCarthy, took fourth place with her 201.07 and 139.28 dive scores.
The Toreros next race against LMU on November 2.
Courtesy: Pepperdine Athletics
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The Pepperdine women’s swim and dive team competed in their second of two meets in San Diego today. The Waves lost to the University of San Diego Toreros 185-113 but they had five event wins throughout the day.
MEET RECAP
The Waves had several first place finishes in their dual meet against the USD Toreros. The first came from Paulina Holmberg who won the 1-meter diving with a score of 227.55. Olivia Stotz was close behind her scoring a 214.35, which was good for second. Holmberg and Stotz also went first and second in second round of diving with scores of 166.50 and 159.30, respectively.
In the swimming events, Sammie Slater won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:56.18. Emily Morton followed directly behind her in second with a time of 1:56.89. Morton then earned the first win of her own in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:06.62, a full three seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. The final win was also posted by Morton in the 400 individual medley, who won with a time of 4:33.50 which was nearly 10 seconds ahead of any other competitor.
QUOTABLE
“We had a very successful first road trip and a really good day at USD.” said Head Coach Joe Spahn. “We just ended up on the wrong side of some very close races, but we are racing hard which is what I want to see at this point of the season. Our divers are building up their dives as well and improving each meet. Going 1, 2 on both boards was huge for us. Overall, I’m excited to see how well we competed while being tired.”
“This week coming up will be an important one for us to continue training as well as getting healthy. We then have another great stretch of racing by heading up to UC Davis to swim against them and Cal State East Bay in a two day meet. We will then back that up with an exciting evening home meet against LMU (Nov. 8). It’s always exciting to race out rivals, especially under the lights.”
“We will really get to see what we are made of when we host our Pepperdine Winter Invite (Nov.22-24). We have a lot of talented teams coming so we will be ready for some great racing!
NEXT UP
The Waves will be traveling up to Davis, California for a two-day meet against UC Davis and Cal State East Bay on November 1st and 2nd.
Another great start for one of our great college swim teams, the Toreros!!!! Congrats!